The Outside World
by xxxLittleEnviousBlackRosexxx
Summary: Mary is tired of tea parties with imaginary friends, tired of the art gallery, and most of all, tired of waiting for Guertena to come back.


_This is an idea that I've been harassing myself for the last two months or so to write about. This is another Mary-centric fanfic. _

Disclaimer: I don't own Ib.

Shining blue eyes look upon Guertenas' aged and wrinkling face.

"You'll come back for me, right? I don't want to be all alone! Promise me!" A pair of little hands clings onto his shirt and a bob of yellow hair tilts back to look up at him.

Guertena sighs tiredly and pats Marys' head.

"I promise, Mary. I promise I will come back someday and get you. But you have to promise me you will be a good girl and wait here patiently. Don't go outside of the art gallery. This is very important."

She smiles, beaming with pride. "I promise! I will be a good girl so you can come back someday! I know you'll never leave me alone so I will be patient!"

He smiles back, but it is a weak one. He gives her a tight hug and then walks away, back slouched and worn hands behind him, away through the door, a tear silently rolling down his cheek.

* * *

So Mary waits patiently. She sits in a chair with her hands folded in her lap. And time goes by…

A day, then a week, then a month…

She starts to keep herself occupied by hosting tea parties. But first she would have to find friends to invite. She stands up from sitting and goes to wander around the art gallery. Some of the paintings talk to her as she passes. They are friendly, but they are also Guertenas' creations and he probably wouldn't like her taking them off the walls. She leaves them on the walls, and walks back to her room to sit and wait for him to come back.

* * *

A year passes.

Mary grows restless. She stops simply sitting to pacing and rummaging through drawers in the room, but never taking anything out.

One day, she finds a china tea set and a lace table cloth hidden behind some paint bottles. She hasn't found any friends to invite to a tea party yet, but she can set up for one when the time comes that she makes friends. She spreads the cloth neatly on a table and places the tea set pieces for each seat.

The next day, she goes to search for friends.

The Ladies in Red and Blue didn't make very good friends, even though they had hands to hold tea cups. They screeched at her and threw themselves off the walls only to crawl after her. She ran back to her room again as fast as she could, crying.

"Guertena! Where are you?! I'm scared! I don't like it here! Please, answer me!" She cries herself to sleep that night, afraid those women would get into her room somehow.

* * *

Two more years pass.

Mary sits at the table and shuts her eyes tight imagining other people to be at the empty seats. She opens her eyes and struggles to keep the images in her mind. If she couldn't find any friends in the art gallery, she could make them up. Even they weren't actually real, it was better than silence.

* * *

Mary pours invisible tea into a tea cup for an empty seat at the table. She places the cup on the saucer gently, using her best lady-like manners, just like Guertena had taught her. When he comes back, she'll show him how lady-like she has become while he was gone.

"Thank you very much for coming to visit me," she says to the empty seat. "It's so nice to see you, since it has been so lonely lately." The image she has in her mind began to fade.

Something inside her bursts in a violent explosion.

Suddenly, she sweeps her hand across the table, knocking over the tea set and watches each piece shatter, one by one. She screams and stomps on the remaining pieces. It doesn't take long before tears fell.

_Guertena isn't coming back_… _Guertena is never coming back_…

She stomps out of her room to the art gallery. She wanders, not afraid of the Ladies in Red and Blue or even bothering to listen to the paintings. She doesn't know where she is going, but she wants to go anywhere away from the art gallery. She stops when she reaches the angler fish pond. Mary looks up and sees people walking, looking at paintings, and talking to each other. She smiles. There. There is where she is going to go.


End file.
